The number of industrial robots in china will increase tenfold to 1.8 million units by 2025. Up to 70% of the robots used in China will be made in China which will increase from 30% now. According to the International Federation of Robots, China will have 40% of total worldwide robotic sales by 2019, an increase from 27% percent in 2015.
China is currently the biggest shareholder of the robotic global market at a net worth of $30 billion. It is currently ranked No. 1 in sales for industrial robots. South Korea and Japan are ranked second and third, respectively. The U.S. is ranked fourth.
The density of automation usage lags other countries: 68 robots per 10,000 industrial workers, compared with 631 bots for every 10,000 manufacturing staff in South Korea, the global leader in automation. Singapore, Germany and Japan all have higher densities of automation than China.
China wants to more than double that usage density to 150 for every 10,000 workers by 2020. China target is 400,000 industrial robots by the end of 2020.
China has about 24 million industrial workers.
Chinese tech companies have invested and acquired in robotic leaders. In 2017, Midea, an electrical appliance manufacturer, purchased German robotics company Kuka.
The Guangdong provincial government offered 943 billion yuan in subsidies between 2015 and 2018 to help local manufacturers automate. Zhejiang province has provided 800 billion yuan to spur 36,000 enterprises to make a similar switch by 2020.
400 companies of the Guangdong industry guild will have double-digit sales growth for their robots for the next few years.
A skilled factory worker earns about 36,000 yuan a year in wages and benefits in China’s poorer provinces and second-tier cities, away from the coast. Total remuneration can exceed 60,000 yuan in cities nearer the coast and along the eastern seaboard, like in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas.
A 200,000 yuan robot that can do the job of three humans can recoup its capital cost in 22 months in central provinces, or in a little over a year in coastal cities.